Summary

Our Score

User Score

Pros

Cons

Call us strange, but at TrustedReviews we love a good NAS device. The combination of a safe repository for our data, and – in most – a range of features and abilities designed to augment that storage capacity make for a winning combination. Over the past few years Synology has been consistently rolling out high quality NAS systems, with last year’s DS410j, for example, impressing us with its low price, and plentiful capabilities. Good things, therefore, are to be expected of this year’s model, the DS411j.

Aesthetically the differences are, for all intents and purpose, non-existent. Remove the product name from the front facia, and we defy anyone to tell the DS411j apart from its predecessor externally. This isn’t a bad thing, however, as the system is certainly attractive as NAS devices go. So although you’ll generally put your NAS out of sight, the DS411j won’t offend your eyes if it is left on display. The constant flashing of the LAN, hard drive activity and system status LEDs might get a bit annoying, though.

Rearwards, the DS411j has a hinged panel held in place with thumbscrews – making for easy removal. Flipping this open reveals four removable bays which will have screw holes for both 3.5in and 2.5in hard drives. Sensibly the DS411j’s Kensington lock attachment point holds the rear panel in place. Below this panel sit the DS422j’s power input, Gigabit Ethernet jack, and twin USB ports. Nothing revolutionary, but all the important bases are covered.

Being picky, we’d prefer for the drive bays to be placed at the front making for easier access, and we wouldn’t complain if the drive trays were metal rather than plastic. But such complaints wouldn’t stop us buying a DS411j and really we can’t fault the unit - especially given its circa-£250 drive-free asking price.